


My Darker Side (I'll find your light)

by highest_water



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark Swan Arc, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 12:09:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4828637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highest_water/pseuds/highest_water
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say you hurt the ones you love the most. She had never really believed the statement to have much gravitas. After all, she'd been hurt time and time again in her life and when it came down to it, it was because people didn't love her enough, not because they did. And yet, now...now she knew what they meant. She knew because she saw what she was doing to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Darker Side (I'll find your light)

 

As things go, she'd been having a good day. Good in comparative terms. Her life, she feared, was no longer her own and her definition of good had drastically changed in the recent months.

Good now meant not hurting someone. Not abusing her power to inflict damage. Not leaving a trail of devastation in her wake. No, today had been going well. She'd managed to spend the day with Henry helping him on his latest school project and there had been moments where she had forgot. Moments, seconds really, where she had lost herself in his enthusiasm and his laughter. (A laugh that she had to acknowledge was deepening by the day.)

On days like this, she felt as if 'Emma Swan' didn't trip off her tongue as a lie. When the magic pulsed through veins without ever igniting, she felt a semblance of control. Perhaps she could do this.

Admittedly, she had truly succeeded at very little in life. Mother, daughter, saviour, lover were all honours she never felt she deserved. But, with so much at stake, she was determined to find a way to do _this_. To make the bitter union of light and dark within her work.

It wasn't that she didn't believe in her family to help her, to fight for her. She would never have found herself in this situation had she not. Would never have taken such a risk if she knew they weren't there to fight, to believe.But it had been months and there seemed no way out for her. She refused to force this darkness onto someone else.

Not that she hadn't begged _him_ in her darkest hour. When she whispered in a sadistic voice that wasn't her own that it should have been him.

She felt the self loathing rise to the surface and tried to force herself to breathe.

In.

Out.

When she was in this state, where she was more darkness than light, any heightened emotions (the good and the bad) could cause chaos. She tried to block out the vision of his tears as he had held her, had sworn to her that he would do anything to prevent her from pain. How he would have gladly sacrificed himself had he been smarter. Had he been quicker to see what she was planning to do. No, she couldn't dwell on it too much for fear of what she may do if she lost control. If she gave in to her anger.

She found comfort in the deathly quiet of the scene before her. In her solitude they were safe. She raked a taloned hand over her face as she recalled the moment that had brought her to be hidden away, perched on a deserted verge overlooking the harbour.

 

\--------

They'd finally put the finishing touches to Henry's project and were sitting nursing two mugs of hot cocoa when he'd mentioned a field trip he was going on next week. She'd asked him to grab his permission slip so she could sign it.

'Grandpa already signed it at the loft this morning,' he'd shrugged.

That was it.

That was all there had been to it.

Suddenly the dark magic had surged through her, burning up her insides. She'd immediately stood, grabbing her mug and marching to the sink so that her back was to Henry. He'd carried on talking but she couldn't make out the words. Her skin throbbed with the effort of not exploding as darkness feasted on her childhood insecurities. How could Henry have some many people in his life to sign a god damned permission slip? How was that fair? Why should one child have two mothers, grandparents, step-grandparents and a whole host of other other surrogate family members to cater to him when she had had _nobody_?

No one to sign permission slips. Not a single soul who would assume responsibility for her.

All it had taken was a single sentence for the dark magic to maliciously prey on her mind. Her grip on the mug tightened so much that it broke within her hands, temporarily shattering the spell she was under and notifying Henry that something was wrong.

'Mom?' She hated the concern in his voice. He shouldn't have to see this. She kept her gaze averted to the floor as she swept past him snatching her keys from the side.

He couldn't see her like this - with venom in her eyes. She would not do this in front of him.

'Mom!'

She heard his footsteps chasing after her. Without turning around, she tried to reassure him. 'Henry, I need to go. Call Regina to come get you.'

He'd be safe. She'd be gone and he'd be safe.

Each step took her closer to the car and closer to assuring his safety. Whisps of black magic curled outwards from her finger tips.

10 more steps.

Nine.

'Mom!' His plea tore through her heart.

Eight.

Seven.

She heard his voice then as he spoke in to his cell phone. ' _Please_ , you need to come. It's my Mom.'

But she wasn't his mother right now. What kind of a mother felt such jealousy directed towards her own child? She finally grasped the handle of the bug and pulled it open with such force that is nearly came off its hinges. Slamming the door, she sped off down the street. The tyre skid a dirty blemish on the road.

(Had she been stronger she wouldn't have looked in the rear view mirror to see her boy with his head in his hands.)

 

\--------

The incident had been hours ago now and the storms within her were slowly subsiding. She watched the waves before her ebb and flow and heard _his_ voice in her head. His words of reassurance. _'The sea changes with the tides, but it never loses sight of itself.'_

He'd brought her here in a moment of clarity. A moment where they were simply Emma and Killian. Two people joined together. She'd confessed to him everything she had done and all she felt that afternoon, safely wrapped up in his embrace. He'd listened and, inexplicably, he'd understood.

She'd wept from the release and clung onto him a little tighter. He was her rock. Her anchor in the storm. Through it all. All of the madness and chaos and hurt, he was there. Never overbearing her, never asking too much, never putting himself first. Always her. Always Emma. When it all became too much, he let her go and assured her family that he would help her. They believed him because he could.

Knowing he was there helped. He knew what she needed, whether it be space or comfort or even a fight, before she did. She loved him for it and hated that she couldn't be more to him. Do more for him. She _loved_ him.

And so, in her darkest moments it was him who she punished.

She knew what she was doing to him. She couldn't be blind to the physical change in him. He was haggard and exhausted and saddened. Disarray encroached on his rugged handsomeness and the lilt in his voice sounded tired. But he stubbornly refused to give up on her.

He should hate her really.

The things she had said to him, the things she had done to him... A tear escaped from her eye as she heard footsteps behind her. She didn't need to be The Dark One to sense who it was. Where others' footsteps would be hesitant, his were confident and assured. She made no effort to prevent other tears from falling as she remembered the last time she had spoken to him.

How she had teased him and belittled him. The fears he had confessed to her in loving embraces, she threw back at him in vindictive blows. To hurt. To scar. She knew his heart and soul. It was how she knew just how to twist the knife.

Seldom had she seen Killian Jones surprised, but even he had been taken aback by the callousness of her attack. He'd quickly schooled his features, but the flash of despair had etched itself on Emma's mind.

And all because he had refused to surrender to the darkness with her. Her pirate captain who had fought so hard to earn his place among the heroes so that he could stand by her side.

(He was more of a hero than she would ever be for not walking away from her. For not taking the easy option to be with her.)

The memory was another torment to her soul. The hurt in his gaze as he had pulled his arm from her grip and told her that he would fight for he and her (Killian and Emma, not Hook and The Dark One) to have their shot. The pain it caused him to physically pull away from her.

'I once said I would go to the ends of the earth for you,' he had sighed, 'and I will, Emma. That includes not leaving you alone in this. If that means I need to revert to piracy then so be it.' He had lifted her chin then so that she could see the sincerity in his eyes. What she saw softened her anger and fuelled her self hatred. 'But know,' he continued on a whisper ghosting over her skin, 'that I will go to the ends of the earth and time to find a way to save you from this before I do.'

She shook herself from the memories as she saw him move to sit further down the verge from her. She hated that her son, her little boy, who she had begged to ring his adoptive mother so that she could comfort him, had clearly first rung Killian so that _he_ could comfort _her_.

_'Please, you need to come. It's my Mom.'_

She hugged her leather clad knees to her chest on a shaky exhale and turned to watch Killian looking out to the sea. His hair was blowing lightly in the wind and his legs stretched easily out before him. She hoped the sea was still able to offer him some comfort. That she hadn't ruined that for him too.

He was waiting for her, even now. Even now when she had abused his trust, he had come without hesitation. How he had come to simply assure her of his presence, of his love.

Magic hummed through her veins as she gazed at him, but it was a different kind of magic. A magic all of their own.

She wasn't quite ready to move yet. He knew it as well as she did.

And so she waited. Felt calmness returning to her, acknowledged it in the way she felt herself smile with the realisation that Jones and his _damn_ _patience_ were rubbing off on her.

Waited until she was finally ready to stand and walk over to him on shaky legs.

To settle herself in between his outstretched legs and lean back against the solid security of chest. To feel his arms wrap around her middle and see their boot clad feet mingled together in a way that felt domestic and normal and real.

They sat tangled up together as the sun set and the tide came in.

It felt like coming home.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Characters belong to the creators of Once Upon A Time
> 
> Title borrowed from Rhodes - Darker Side


End file.
